New Spain

The Viceroyalty of New Spain (1521-1826) was a semi-independent dependency of the Kingdom of Spain, founded by conquistadores who took over its lands from the native Americans. It encompassed all of the American West, parts of Florida, all of Central America, and all of South America except for Portuguese Brazil, French Guiana, and Dutch Guyana.

Founding
New Spain had its roots in Christofo Colombo's  expeditions to the New World in 1492 and 1493. His goal was to find a different route to India, but he instead located the Caribbean islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Soon to follow him were successive explorers such as Amerigo Vespucci, whose name is seen in the name of two continents: the "Americas".

The first viceroy was Diego Velazquez, whose capital was La Habana, a city which he founded in 1515. Velazquez's general Hernan Cortes reached Vera Cruz on mainland America in Mexico, a land of the Tlaxcalans, Tarascans, Chichimec, Aztec Empire, Mayans, Zapotec, and many other tribes. Cortes set up a camp and colony at Veracruz, the base for Spanish expansion in Mexico. When he declared independence from Velazquez, the latter sent a colonial expeditionary army to arrest him, but Cortes ambushed and defeated the army and took in its survivors as his men. In effect, Cortes was following the steps that Velazquez had taken to gain independence from Spain's crown itself.

Expansion
From 1521 to 1697 Spain conquered Central America from the rival tribes with aid from the Tlaxcalans. New Spain's rapid expansion led to its dominion over all of the American West, Florida, the Gulf Coast, most of the Caribbean islands, all of Central America, and all of South America except for Brazil, Guyana, and Suriname. Its capital was at Ciudad Mexico (Mexico City, also simply Mexico), which was the seat of the government. It fought a series of wars in North America against the Pueblo Nations, Cherokee Nations, and other European powers such as the Kingdom of France and Great Britain.

Wars of Revolution
In the 1760s New Spain gained Louisiana but handed it back to the French in 1800 as a part of a peace treaty. It was loyal to Spain until the central government collapsed in 1808, and the people, inspired by the success of the American Revolution of 1783 and the French Revolution of 1789, decided to revolt and gain independence.

The first rebellion was Manuel Belgrano's Argentinian war of independence. The Argentinians defeated the New Spanish at the Battle of Tucuman in 1812, and years later the rest of South America and Mexico rose up in rebellion. By 1826, all of South America had defeated New Spain's "Royalists" and divided into many Hispanic countries.

Successor States
New Spain was divided into the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata, Chile, Gran Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and many other countries. These major nations would fight in the Platine War, War of the Triple Alliance (Uruguayan War), and the War of the Pacific from the 1850s to 1870s, and the dominant land power was Mexico, with Chile as the dominant naval power. Mexico lost all of New Spain's American lands to the Republic of Texas and United States by 1849, and Central America and South America remained Hispanic.